08 Jan 4 Ways to Save Money On AirFare
Everyone likes to save money on airfare. Hey, saving money is pretty much as good as making more money, right? Actually, with a bit of thought and planning, it’s generally way easier to save money, than it is to make more money.
One of our favourite ways of saving money, is on airfare. We’re a family of 5, so if we can save $200 a flight – well, you can do the math. Here are some of the best method’s to save money on airfare:
#1 – Use aggregator websites to search multiple sites.
First, what the heck is an aggregator??? No, we’re not talking about crushed rocks here.
We mean an aggregator website. It’s a site that combs a number of other websites, for its data. So, in the case of flights, an aggregator will search dozens or perhaps hundreds of results. The site then typically has various filters so that you can choose from least expensive, shortest flight duration, or similar criteria – saving you a ton of time and hassle.
We like Skyscanner.com on the web, or download the app. We’ve also added a specific skyscanner page to our site so you can book flights. Our favourite search for those that are either retired, digital nomads is their “flights to anywhere” search. Give this a try, and it will find you the best deals on flights – everywhere, from the airport of your choice.
We know a lot of people who simply go to to the popular carrier on the route they are searching for. Don’t do this! Skycanner is a airfare aggregator, and searches dozens, or even hundreds of flight options for you. Over 60,000,000 people use Skycanner each month to save money on airfare.
Other meta search aggregators (sites that search multiple airlines) are:
- https://www.airfarewatchdog.com/ which we like for it’s email functionality of when the prices change on a route you are watching.
- https://www.kiwi.com/
- https://www.google.com/flights/ It’s google. They tend to do a lot of things right, but are not always the lowest price.
- https://www.momondo.com/ This site is pretty good. Sometimes it will have lower prices than Skyscanner…!
#2 Use Budget Airlines
There are a lot of choices when it comes to booking airfare. If you’re located in Canada or the USA, then these may be familiar to you:
- WowAir – Good deals on flights to Europe. Note, Wow was recently purchased by Iceland Air in November of 2018.
- Swoop
- Jetlines – Canada’s newest discount airfare carrier, is getting set to launch in 2019
- WestJet – not sure they are a budget airline anymore….but started out that way.
For the USA try these airlines;
#3 Be flexible
This sounds a bit wishy-washy. But really, it’s probably the most powerful, and reliable way to save money on airfare. Travelling at peak times? That’s just terrible. On so many levels! The airports are busy, the hotels are busy and expensive. And flights are scarce and expensive.
Can you be flexible? Most people can. We take our kids out of school and sometimes travel at off peak times. We think the education they receive from going to new places – is invaluable.
If you can be flexible on either the TIME of year, or the DESTINATION, this will help a lot too. There’s almost always a deal somewhere (as noted in #1, use Skyscanner’s “flights to anywhere” search.)
If you’re flexible on TIME of year, try looking for accommodations during traditional lower seasons of the specific destination where you’re going.
So, if you’re headed to say Mexico, it doesn’t mean that you need to travel there in August. But, Mexico does have far more availability and subsequently, lower prices, in November and Early December than January, February or March.
One of our favourite travel times is actually the first 2 weeks of December. Most of the free world is busy at Holiday parties, and hectically shopping. There is no better time to sip a tropical drink on a not-too busy beach. IndyKey members get access to up to 60% off regular prices on accommodation deals in warm places – and early December usually has good availability.
#4 Search Nearby Airports with Kiwi.com
This site can be really useful. It does a great job of searching and aggregating the lowest airfares. One of the features we like most, is that you can search “regions” instead of just a specific City. This can quickly identify the lowest priced airfare in the region for you. Maybe you’ll modify your original plan to a specific city to save on airfare.
You’re actually able to drag a circle from the Kiwi home page, to enlarge or make the region smaller. Try playing around with their map function.
All of these tools help you not only save on money on airfare, but you’ll also be able to save money on hotels. How?
Well, if you can be more creative and flexible when you book airfare, this will enable you to take advantage of some of the amazing deals on Hotels and Resorts. We’d be silly if we didn’t mention that IndyKey has great member deals, where you can save up to 60%.
Simply join for free and you’ll receive 10,000 points. This is enough to get you a special price on a 7 day stay, at over 1,000 resort destinations.